The Smithsonian Institution continues to bleed to save itself as Sheila P. Burke, the Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer, resigned yesterday. Burke was the second in command to Lawrence P. Small, who resigned as Secretary back in March. The Washington Post reports today that the Board of Regents isn’t taking the call for restructuring lightly, and Burke took the hit after her $1.6 million in compensation from outside activities came to light. The Regents…

Good morning, D.C. It was an eventful weekend across the District, with big to-do’s tying up traffic in every direction. We hope you didn’t spend too much time stuck in it. While we’re genuinely thrilled to hear that Oprah Winfrey’s commencement speech at Howard University was a big hit and was reported on all over the world, we’re pretty disappointed to have it be Monday morning and still have zero reports from any of our…

Two weeks ago, we took a look at the developing discussion over the fate of proposed development on the campus of the Armed Forces Retirement Home (which we’ll refer to as the Home, or AFRH). The post prompted a long discussion and a stream of emails, so today we revisit the subject. The campus site currently consists of about 270 acres, most of which is open space (though closed to the public) but which does…

The Post fired a shot this Sunday in the growing fight over a land-use plan for the campus of the Armed Forces Retirement Home, and some residents of area neighborhoods are preparing their own response. Established in 1851, the Old Soldiers’ Home, which once served as Lincoln’s summer Presidential residence, was originally surrounded by 500 acres of open land amid the neighborhoods of Park View and Petworth, with Brookland off to the east. The…